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The purpose of this paper is to test the merits of the view that the English language has emerged as the dominant language in international business. If there is merit to this view, then the ability to speak English and its role as a lingua franca in the global economy would imply that countries which have English as an official language should have a benefit over non‐English‐speaking countries vis‐à‐vis their abilities to undertake international business.

Within an augmented gravity model framework, the importance of the English language in explaining bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) data within the OECD is tested. In addition to English, all other common official languages within the OECD are also tested. Furthermore, the linguistic distance to English is used to test whether closeness of languages to English enhance international business activity.

The results indicate that English‐speaking countries within the OECD do have a benefit that comes with the English language. Furthermore, countries whose official languages are linguistically close to English benefit from the special role played by the English language. These results therefore highlight the importance of the English language in deploying multinational strategies, even in countries whose official language is not English.

These results therefore indicate the importance of the English language in international business. As such, having a proficiency with English within any corporation should enhance that corporation's ability to engage in international business.

Sharing a common language with FDI partners enhances the ability to communicate, and hence enhances FDI between the countries. This paper extends this evidence to show that when the common language is English, the common language effect is strongest.

This paper aims to describe and characterise the actions carried out by Italian organisations participating in the Economy for the Common Good (ECG) movement and to analyse these actions through the lens of decent work (DW), identifying patterns leading to a typology and conceptual propositions on the subject.

A documentary analysis was conducted on 14 reports describing the actions taken by Italian organisations that belong to the ECG movement. Qualitative content analysis was performed using QSR-NVivo12. The descriptive analysis of the codes was made, as well as a cluster analysis based on coding similarity.

A total of 1,497 actions were coded, and four clusters, grouping sets of the common good reports, were identified. Results suggest that Customers, Business Partners and Staff and Owners are the most addressed stakeholders, human dignity and environmental sustainability are the most addressed values and Fulfilling and Productive Work and Fundamental Principles and Values at Work are the most addressed DW dimensions. Additionally, all clusters are intensive in environmental concerns but have differentiated priorities. Cluster analysis suggests three drivers: recognition, core business closeness and social common good impact. A total of five conceptual propositions are being made useable by organisational leaders who intend to adhere to the ECG movement.

The main limitation is the low number of organisations participating in the ECG movement in Italy, which restricts the scope of the conclusions.

The results are helpful as inputs for designing interventions in organisations that intend to start or strengthen their involvement in the ECG movement.

Identifying DW aspects related to common good indicators and the four approaches to the ECG adhesion corresponding to the four clusters.

This study was aimed to examine emerging knowledge commons in the public libraries in the Thabo Mofutsanyane District in Free State, South Africa.

A triangulated sample survey was adopted to collect data from the users of the commons using a questionnaire, and data of community member and the library officers were collected using an interview schedule. The study was guided by Hess and Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development framework.

The librarians and the commons users recognise the changing nature, roles and services of the libraries without necessarily attributing the changes to the emergence of knowledge commons. Users viewed the commons by the learning opportunities offered by information and communication technologies. They were, however, willing to contribute their resources to boost and enrich the commons; their contributions presently take the forms of volunteering of their knowledge and skill through offering of training sessions to users of the commons. A critical aspect of the commons, namely, participation in the governance and management of the commons resources appears not to be occurring.

To adequately build knowledge commons in the libraries will require formally introducing knowledge commons in the libraries, doing a systems analysis, deciding on the content and their sources, drawing up a programme for nurturing the system including training of relevant staff and then providing basic infrastructures.

This study used quantitative approach to deploy the institutional analysis development Institutional Analysis and Development framework in the study of public library institution. Studies on knowledge commons in public libraries have not been found.

This paper aims to present the “Vulnerability Sourcebook” methodology, a standardised framework for the assessment of climate vulnerability and risk in the context of adaptation planning. The Vulnerability Sourcebook has been developed for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and has been applied in more than twenty countries worldwide.

It is based on a participative development of so-called climate impact chains, which are an analytical concept to better understand, systemise and prioritise the climate factors as well as environmental and socio-economic factors that drive climate related threats, vulnerabilities and risks in a specific system. Impact chains serve as the backbone for an operational climate vulnerability assessment with indicators based on quantitative approaches (data, models) combined with expert assessments. In this paper, the authors present the concept and applications of the original Vulnerability Sourcebook, published in 2015, which was based on the IPCC AR4 concept of climate vulnerability. In Section 6 of this paper, the authors report how this concept has been adapted to the current IPCC AR5 concept of climate risks.

The application of the Sourcebook is demonstrated in three case studies in Bolivia, Pakistan and Burundi. The results indicate that particularly the participative development of impact chains helped with generating a common picture on climate vulnerabilities and commitment for adaptation planning within a region. The mixed methods approach (considering quantitative and qualitative information) allows for a flexible application in different contexts. Challenges are mainly the availability of climate (change) and socio-economic data, as well as the transparency of value-based decisions in the process.

The Vulnerability Sourcebook offers a standardised framework for the assessment of climate vulnerability and risk in the context of adaptation planning.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on: first, what major impacts do organizers perceive special events to create, and how do they measure an event’s success? second, do these perceived impacts align with the major themes of economic benefits, social impacts, and community cohesiveness revealed in the existing literature? and third, why do event organizers perceive these major impacts?

In order to gain a better understanding of the types of community impact event organizers anticipate from, and attempt to solicit through special events, this study makes use of a survey with open-ended questions. Such questions enable a broader discussion between interviewees and interviewers, giving interviewees greater response leeway and generating more material for the researcher’s analysis.

Findings suggest that bringing the community together, producing economic benefits for local businesses, and creating socializing and educational opportunities for visitors are the primary impacts anticipated by interviewed event organizers. In particular, providing a positive experience by getting the community involved proves to be the key element to the success of any special event discussed.

There are a couple of limitations to the study. First, the study presented a relatively small sample. Second, these results may relate to the institutions located along Lake Erie where parks and recreation have long been viewed as an integral part of community life.

This study represents a first attempt to complement the quantitative data in the former research with a qualitative study. Through in-depth interviews, it sets out to create a dialogue from the event organizers along Lake Erie in the USA to help better understand the impacts of special events prepared by Parks and Recreation Departments.

This paper aims to focus on impact integrity in investment decision-making – an under-researched yet important topic – as a means for optimising investor contributions to sustainable development outcomes, including achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This conceptual paper adopts a two-step approach. First, this paper reviews existing “responsible” investment strategies and products used in practice and highlight their shortcomings in terms of optimising sustainable development outcomes. Second, drawing from the minimal standards theory, this study explores how emerging impact management practices may strengthen impact integrity in investment decision-making and mitigate shortcomings in existing “responsible” investment approaches to increase their contribution to sustainable development outcomes.

Current “responsible” investment approaches often do not optimise sustainable development outcomes and may facilitate “impact washing”. The theoretically grounded framework demonstrates standardised impact management practices based on a bounded flexibility approach – adaptable to different contexts within limits and assessed by skilled analysts – along with incorporating shared language and conventions supported by appropriate accountability mechanisms that can be used to mitigate shortcomings in current “responsible” investment approaches. The authors further propose accountability mechanisms to systematically involve stakeholders (including rightsholders) in decisions that impact them with effective grievance and reparation mechanisms. Such an approach, the authors argue will strengthen impact integrity and the capacity of investments to optimise contributions to sustainable development outcomes.

The findings have implications for the ability of investment markets to optimise their contributions to sustainable development and the SDGs.

By highlighting shortcomings in current “responsible” investment approaches and focussing on strengthening impact integrity in investment decision-making through standardised impact management practices, the findings enhance the capacity of investment markets to contribute positively to sustainable development and the SDGs.

Despite its importance, impact integrity in investment decision-making is severely under-researched with little academic attention. This paper fills this void.

This paper aims to address the effective selection of customers for direct marketing campaigns. It introduces a new method to forecast campaign-related uplifts (also known as incremental response modeling or net scoring). By means of these uplifts, only the most responsive customers are targeted by a campaign. This paper also aims at calculating the financial impact of the new approach compared to the classical (gross) scoring methods.

First, gross and net scoring approaches to customer selection for direct marketing campaigns are compared. After that, it is shown how net scoring can be applied in practice with regard to different strategical objectives. Then, a new statistic for net scoring based on decision trees is developed. Finally, a business case based on real data from the financial sector is calculated to compare gross and net scoring approaches.

Whereas gross scoring focuses on customers with a high probability of purchase, regardless of being targeted by a campaign, net scoring identifies those customers who are most responsive to campaigns. A common scoring procedure – decision trees – can be enhanced by the new statistic to forecast those campaign-related uplifts. The business case shows that the selected scoring method has a relevant impact on economical indicators.

The contribution of net scoring to campaign effectiveness and efficiency is shown by the business case. Furthermore, this paper suggests a framework for customer selection, given strategical objectives, e.g. minimizing costs or maximizing (gross or lift)-added value, and presents a new statistic that can be applied to common scoring procedures.

Despite its lever on the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, only few contributions address net scores up to now. The new χ²-statistic is a straightforward approach to the enhancement of decision trees for net scoring. Furthermore, this paper is the first to the application of net scoring with regard to different strategical objectives.

The purpose of this study is to characterize output and impact evaluation initiatives from the perspective of entrepreneurs and investors of social enterprises (SE) by highlighting their relevance, implementation processes and consequences.

This study adopted a qualitative approach through a multiple case study. This study also analyzed ten SE in five areas and three investors, using semi-structured interviews, codification and content analysis.

Evaluation is still at an initial stage in these businesses, and there is a gap between what the field-specific literature proposes and what firms do. Although entrepreneurs feel that evaluation is essential to demonstrate their value and confirm their purpose and impact, it is not a priority.

Due to the small number of Brazilian enterprises and investors, it is impossible to generalize the results.

The results are relevant to rethink strategies, processes and methodological tools that seek to portray, more realistically and reliably, the evaluation dimensions in SE.

This study highlights the risk regarding the legitimacy of social impact ventures since, without the due causal inferences, it is not easy to prove the impact they claim to achieve. This situation conducts to the weakening of the ecosystem leading to the emptying of the term impact.

The main research contributions address the methodologies, practices and evaluation routines of some Brazilian SE and their investors, presenting the characteristics, perceptions and limitations of the studied ventures.

This bibliography aims to give citations and annotations for a core selection of sources on the information and learning commons trend in academic libraries.

Articles, books, and web sites relevant to this topic were found in the Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts database; Library Literature Index; WorldCat; and on the internet. Sources were chosen that contribute to an overview of the concepts or cover practical considerations in implementation.

Libraries are developing best practices as they experiment with learner‐centered service models, but they apply these best practices differently according to their unique needs. Early implementations focus on technology and access, while later implementations focus on more collaborations surrounding learner‐centered pedagogies.

This bibliography selects from English language books, web sites, and peer reviewed journals about US, British, Canadian, and Oceania academic libraries, large and small.

This survey of the literature will help librarians and administrators understand the theoretical trends and collaboration that influence how libraries can change service, space, and technology to meet emerging needs.

Ten years after the first comprehensive review of fiscal noting in the states, revisiting the impact of cost analysis on unfunded state mandates yields pessimistic conclusions. More states have adopted fiscal noting over the period, yet few report that the process is successful. The majority of fiscal notes contain no cost estimates at all for a variety of reasons, including lack of time, lack of resources, lack of legislative attention, and perhaps lack of institutional capacity.